Just my bumbling attempts to navigate adulthood

Navigation

Tag Archives: disney

Post navigation

First off, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I figured I may as well throw it in since I’m posting on the holiday.

For someone who wants no children, I talk about them a lot. Then again, I have a strange knack for talking a lot about things I don’t have, whether I want them or not. Don’t ask. Chalk it up to “I think a lot”.

Yesterday, I saw a video on Facebook about a mother who takes her daughter to Disneyland several times a year because they have annual passes and live about 20 minutes away from the park. She sews costumes for her daughter. My first thought was, “Yeah, this is why I don’t need a daughter.”

I can’t deny it’s because I myself am female, but if I had a daughter, she would undoubtedly be a spoiled princess (or tomboy, if she preferred that)! If I had the finances and lived very close to Disneyland, it’s a safe bet she’d be going everyday. My only regret would be I couldn’t wear the costumes with her. Disneyland forbids guests over age 14 from wearing costumes. I understand the reason for the rule, but it’s one of the reasons I lost my desire to go years ago. Oh, well.

Funnily enough, my boyfriend also agrees. When I showed up him the video and told him the above, he replied we’d both spoil our non-existent daughter if we could. I was a little surprised to hear him say that because he does not like taking care of kids at all. The next thing he said was: “If I had the money, I would be spoiling [his niece].”

To me, it’s genuinely one of the cutest things he’s ever said. His niece is the exception to his dislike of caring for kids. Even I have to admit I love his niece, despite having zero familial relationship to her and only seeing her a handful of times, and she also likes me, to the point she was once screaming she wanted me after seeing me when I hadn’t been around her for some time.

However, it still prefaces why neither of us needs kids. We want the adorable parts of raising a child without the awful parts, but there’s no way to separate the two. It’s the reason I stick to fantasy and Sims games, and he sticks to being devoted to his niece. Children aren’t novelties. Dolls are for dressing up and parading around. There’s so much more to children, and they deserve parents who are willing to take all the awfulness along with the cuteness. I regularly hear raising children is 90% awful and only 10% good, but the 10% makes up for the 90%. I think it’s only worth it if you’re willing to accept those odds from the start, and even some people who are already parents aren’t. Ouch.

Still, I also think it’s ironic and a bit funny two people who do not want their own kids think nothing of spoiling our hypothetical child if she did exist. Or he. The mother from the video also has a son who she lets get in on the fun. I only emphasize “daughter” because the video mainly focuses on the daughter.

I know children’s media in general has a reputation for being educational to some extent, if only to appease what’s known as the “moral guardians”.

However, Disney is my most favorite when it comes to (animated) films and recently, I found a pattern in their movies, particularly the Disney Princess line. All of their DP follow the expression about things getting worse before they get better. Right before the situation improves and the happy ending comes, it’s made to seem like there’s no way it possibly could improve.

And I like that.

Obviously, animation isn’t to be taken as realism, but it’s certainly true in life things sometimes do worsen before they finally improve. Sometimes, people do hit rock bottom before they finally move back up.

It happened to me. At first, I could think only think of two major things where that was the case – my job and my boyfriend – but upon further thought, I’ve been through it more times than I can count.

Before I had my very first job interview, I’d gotten myself trapped in another city due to following a shady job agency I was too desperate to see through. That was one of the days I genuinely came to close to giving in to the heavy depressive thoughts that returned. Before I met my boyfriend, I was ready to give up on dating because I’d gotten nothing out of it in that two years and it didn’t feel worth it to keep trying. Despite the “downs”, I’m very happy with him and he’s the best relationship I’ve had. I had never kept any steady friendships beyond school due to moving and I was prepared for high school to end the same way. I met my best friend in 11th grade and we’ve been friends for five years, and still are.

That’s not to say I’d be willing to repeat those worst periods again, or that I’m happy they happened. You’d have to kill me before I return to high school or anything lower. I’m happy there was something get out of living through them.

There’s another low point I’m anticipating this May, but I foresaw it years ago. I’m not sure what good will come out of passing through, but hopefully, I remain pleasantly surprised. The upside is this time, I have much more support than I did with any of my previous low points.

As for Disney, I hope they do continue this trend of things hitting their absolute worst before getting better. It may not be new or original at this point, but it’s definitely an important lesson.

Yesterday, my summer group saw the movie Monsters University. We were supposed to see Despicable Me 2, but we would’ve had to wait a half-hour until it started and a large group can’t exactly stand around in a cinema.

To sum the plot up, Mike goes to the titular school to join the scare program and become a true scarer. However, thanks to Sully’s antics, he gets kicked out of the program by the dean because she thinks he’s not scary. Mike ends up assembling a team and participating in the Scare Games to prove he is scary. His team wins, but the victory turns out to be a false one because Sully tampered with the final game when it was Mike’s turn. Sully confesses and is expelled. Meanwhile, Mike has entered a door to the human world without permission to once again prove he is scary. Doesn’t work, as the kids find him to more cute than scary. Sully goes after him and together, the two pull off a scare that opens the door from the inside and also basically causes an explosion. As punishment, they’re both expelled, but Mike’s team from the Scare Games is allowed in the scare program. After Mike boards the bus to go home, Sully stops it to tell Mike that while he may not be scary, he is fearless. The dean flies in to basically agree and wish them luck. Mike and Sully become a team and work together at the Monsters Company, first starting in the mailroom, but eventually working their way up to becoming scarers. The movie ends with Mike and Sully about to begin their first day of scaring children. Thus, Mike has finally reached his dream of being a scarer.

Now, I love just about any movie that has a happy ending, but what I loved in particular about this one is that Mike still got what he wanted in the end, despite having so many people against him and being expelled from the university he’d had his heart set on. He’d been teased since childhood about not being scary and that didn’t change when he grew up. He was still mocked and ridiculed, even by the dean. While there was a point where he did give up, it wasn’t because of all the teasing. It was failure to scare the kids. Even then, Sully talked him out of it by revealing that he wasn’t as perfect as his arrogance made him out to be. Basically, what I loved about this movie is that Mike’s determination and ambition, as well as Sully’s encouragement, is what ultimately led to him reaching his goal.

While I realize it’s merely a movie and reality is hugely different, it doesn’t change that there is a little bit of reality in the movie. The lesson is you don’t have to walk on a “perfect” path to achieve what you want and the road to success isn’t always straight.

Back in high school, the teachers, guidance counselors, and even the vice principal preached about how college was so important and there was no excuse not to go. If you didn’t attend college, you had no chance of having a successful life. A little curiosity found me some different ideas. Sometimes, that plan doesn’t always work out. There are many people with college degrees, even masters, who are stuck in dead-end jobs either due to the economy or their chosen field not being high in demand. At the same time, there are people who never attended college who work government-related jobs.

I think I’ve said before that I genuinely want to attend college. However, it’s very nice to know that there is no one “right” path in life and instead, there are many paths that can lead to success, whatever the definition of that word is for each person. That’s also another great thing. “Success” has a different meaning for everyone. If my life doesn’t match someone else’s, it doesn’t mean I’m a failure. It means my life is different. I hope I don’t seem idealistic typing this because I don’t believe I am. I just think college needs to stop being pushed so much on young adults and the notion that college automatically leads to success needs to die. Not only is it ludicrous, it’s dangerous.

I love fairies and fairy tales in general. I used to have storybooks full of them, but I have no idea what happened to those books.

Now, I am drawing and writing about fairies, although not Disney Fairies. A different kind. I confess to being a bit fixated on them, but that’s what my imagination does to me. It breaks loose with a ridiculous number of ideas for something about fairies. Few of them make it on paper, though.

Today, I spent some time with my aunt and six-year-old cousin (second aunt and third cousin, actually). We were supposed to hang around the mall, but the little one wasn’t feeling well, so we didn’t stay long. While she was resting, I started playing around with her Disney’s Rapunzel doll. Since it’s Rapunzel, this doll had way too much hair!

One thing I’ve wanted to do that I couldn’t before was braids. I hate braids in my hair, but they’re a nice style. Whenever I tried braids before, they did not stay. They came loose or I ended up making a knot. Since there’s not much to do with a sick six-year-old trying to sleep, I looked up on WikiHow how to do braids and practiced on her doll.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was! I followed the instructions directly and got it perfect! I did it a few more times and I got the hang of it easily! I can’t believe I couldn’t do something so simple! Here’s what I ended up doing to the doll:

The little braid was made from three smaller braids.

It took me a while to do, especially because, naturally, this doll’s hair had a ridiculous amount of tangles, but it didn’t take too long and it was kind of fun. I might buy this doll for myself just to play with the hair.